


close ain't close enough

by rolameny



Series: Destiny fics [8]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Crimson Days, Established Relationship, M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, Wizard on Wizard on Wizard Action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17640062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rolameny/pseuds/rolameny
Summary: "Get over here," Praedyth says. "I'm all yours."Pahanin, Praedyth, and Kabr attend a Crimson Days party and continue their experiments in the properties of Nightstalker tethers.





	close ain't close enough

They always gets dressed up nice for the Crimson Days, and Praedyth's outfit this year is his favourite yet. It's made of soft, rich fabric that's comfortable enough to move around in, but that still makes him feel expensive. Lush. The only embroidery is a silver band around his left arm: he stitched it himself, a looping pattern in the finest-gauge silver-platinum alloy wire he could dig out of his supplies, and it looks nearly white against the midnight blue of the robe.

The over-robe has a round, low collar that sits around the base of his neck, and while the rest of it is cut pretty austerely—cuffs to his wrist, a hem that falls nearly to his ankles and slit to let his pants show underneath—the collar has a deep notch, one that runs past his collarbones to end in a point a few inches past his sternum.

Praedyth inspects himself. He's finishing up his hair: half up, a few small braids leading to the tie gathering it all together, spilling loose over his shoulders from there. His hands flash in the mirror, banded red with henna. They'd all done each other this morning: first Kabr had painted his hands, then Pahanin had done Kabr's, and then when Praedyth's had dried he'd done Pahanin's. All of their designs were different, based on habit and preference and how good each of them was at drawing. Praedyth had flowers and lightning bolts dancing up his fingers and rings around his knuckles. He also had a blob in the middle of his palm from when the top of the cone had come undone and he'd saved his work on Pahanin's wrist by sacrificing himself to the spill. Kabr had added a jagged little frame around it afterwards with a fresh cone and now it even almost looked like they'd done it on purpose.

Kabr and Pahanin had wandered off for their own preparations hours ago, and for once Praedyth was alone in his room. They each have a room of their own set off their shared living room and kitchen, but usually they all just sleep together in Kabr's. Praedyth's room is mostly his workshop at this point, his small bed jammed into a corner and covered in boxes of gun parts he hasn't gotten around to yet, the rest of the room dominated by a long workbench and racks of tools. But he's got a stool and a mirror in here, and the workbench holds hairpins as well as it holds torque wrenches.

Someone taps at his open doorway—Kabr, looking just about as handsome as possible, his own long hair loose and gleaming, the hem of his loose silk shirt just skimming over the edge of his pants and revealing a line of stomach as he leans in. Like Praedyth, he's not wearing a titan's mark, but his pants have embroidery that runs along the waist and spills down his left thigh, highlighting his muscle.

Praedyth grins at him. "So that's your outfit! You look great, Kabr."

Kabr smiles back, but there's something sheepish in it, something familiar. Praedyth leans back on his stool. He projects his voice back into the hallway. "You there, Pahanin?"

His other teammate appears in the other side of the door in a little ripple of Light. "How did you give the game away _already_ , Kabr?"

"I didn't say anything," Kabr protests.

"He's got a very expressive face," Praedyth says. "Come in, you two, let me see your outfit, Pahanin."

Kabr steps in first to give Pahanin room. He has to duck his head to get under the lintel and Praedyth thinks, like he has roughly once a month for the past two decades, _we have got to get that door fixed_. They made all the shared room and Kabr's doorway taller when they moved in, but Praedyth spends so little time in his own room that he never remembers.

Pahanin sidles in after. He's in a surprisingly conservative outfit for him, with long sleeves and a high collar, but his eyeliner and dark lipstick are sharp and his cloak's held to him with a jewelled clasp and chain. Praedyth bets if he turns around his cloak will be some kind of masterpiece.

It's hard to figure out his colour scheme, though, with his clothes all lit up at the moment with the other piece of jewellery he's holding in his hands.

Kabr blurts, "We made you something."

Praedyth is taken aback for a moment, but he gives it a closer look. They've been playing around with Pahanin's tethers lately, seeing how fine he can get his control, seeing how well their own Light plays with it. It looks like Kabr and Pahanin have been doing plenty of experimenting on their own, because the tether cord's as fine as Praedyth has ever seen it. It looks like Pahanin spun it out of individual strands thin as wire, gleaming purple-white, a collar-piece as wide as Praedyth's hand that flows down into dozens of longer loops hanging down like a necklace, with more that would hang over your— _his—_ shoulders. It's strung with beads in deeper purple and blue, and Praedyth recognizes Kabr's hand in that: his arc Light dancing over a base of Pahanin's void. Praedyth looks at it and down at himself and then back up at it again. It would cover half his upper body. It would be unmistakable, a lit-up beacon against his robes.

He can feel his ears go hot. "Is this why you told me not to worry about jewellery?"

Kabr and Pahanin exchange a glance. Pahanin gives a little _you first_ gesture, ceding the floor to Kabr. (It makes the jewellery in his hands shiver. Praedyth's eyes are locked on it.)

"We thought — well, the last time went so well," Kabr begins. Praedyth goes even hotter. 

"We thought, it's the Crimson Days, it's all about showing off who you love." Pahanin butts in, talking quick like he's worried he won't have the chance to finish.

Kabr picks up his thread. "And we _really_ want to show you off."

"You're going to kill me and it's going to be hideously embarrassing for us all when Dearheart has to res me right on the dancefloor," Praedyth says, weakly. They all know each other. They've lived and died in each other's pockets for years, traveled everywhere Sol's light reaches together. The two of them know just how much Praedyth likes the thought of being _theirs_ , of being right between the two of them. He likes it as much as Pahanin likes to flicker off on his own and come back, relying on them to steady his orbit, and as much as Kabr likes to hold them down.

It's not just jewellery, it's not just a necklace. It's a collar, made of Pahanin and Kabr's power, and they want him to wear it to the Crimson Days bash.

Kabr and Pahanin stand there, waiting for an answer. They'll accept it if the answer's no, _not tonight, not this, not in public_. But that isn't the answer Praedyth wants to give.

"Of course I'll wear it," he says, quiet. "How did you make it? What does it do?"

Pahanin and Kabr crowd in closer to him in eager relief. They explain how they made it, the adjustments it took, how long Pahanin can sustain it—hours, all night.

"It won't be as strong as last time," Pahanin says, and blushes. He's the only one of them blushes really stand out on, and Praedyth loves to see it. "See the white? That's pure Light, not tether. It won't dull things as much, but the—uh—effect on nerves should be the same."

The last time, the tethers had left Praedyth feeling like someone had slipped a piece of cloth over his eyes and ears, but his skin had been sensitized, prickling, straining after every piece of sensation.

"It will get stronger over the night the more it touches you, and the more it touches skin," Kabr adds. "The way Pahanin got it to sustain itself so long is by letting it feed on environmental Light. Including, uh, the Light of the person wearing it."

"And the beads?"

Kabr and Pahanin exchange another look. "I wasn't going to let him have all the fun," Kabr explains. "They won't hurt."

Praedyth wants to go over all the details of the necklace's creation with them. He wants to read a paper about it, and next week he _will_ make Pahanin agrees to write one. But right now he just wants to wear it.

"Get over here," he says. "I'm all yours."

He gathers up his hair in a hand, clearing the back of his neck. Kabr starts forward — "Let me," he says. "We want it to sit right."

So he holds Praedyth's hair in his big cool hands, keeping it out of the way as Pahanin swings around them to drape the piece around Praedyth's shoulders, held perfectly still.

The longest of its loops fall halfway down Praedyth's sternum, and its weight settles over his shoulders. Then Pahanin does up the high collar—Praedyth can't help but tilt his head back for it, exposing more of his neck. It doesn't dig into his skin, but he knows he won't help but be _aware_ of it every moment it's on him. There's a bead right at the dip between his collarbones, a little piece of void crystallized, and its energy pulses through him.

Pahanin's hands at his neck, Kabr's in his hair, the feel of the collar on him and even the heavy drape of his clothes—he's suddenly so much more aware of them all. He shivers and looks up into the mirror.

Kabr and Pahanin stand behind him, hands on him, their shapes tall and possessive. Between them, Praedyth sits, looking possessed. Their collar on him, something that Praedyth knows would go for thousands of glimmer if they'd made it of metal and not of their own Light. He looks _expensive_.

He tilts his head to press it to Pahanin behind him. "How about we skip the party," he mumbles, not really meaning it.

Pahanin smooths his hands over Praedyth's shoulders, settling the collar's drape. He leans down to press a kiss to Praedyth's hair and Kabr's red-patterned fingers with it. "And miss showing you off to the world? No way."

—

The Vanguard hold a formal party upstairs on the Tower's patio every year, all elegant banners and rose petals and Zavala repressively watching over Shaxx's emceeing. The Traveler's spotlights illuminate it in silver and crimson, and Ghosts dart over and around people on their own errands.

The real parties happen on the lower floors, unofficial, with worse lighting and better music. Pahanin always sorts out the plans for them—he's got his ear to the ground. They've gone to Sai Mota's party three years running because she's managed to snag one of the lower observatories, with plenty of private nooks and an entire wall taken up with glass panels revealing the City spread out under them. She also has her hooks in Omar Agah and his private still, which might not produce _good_ liquor, but which does produce the only gin made with Ionian juniper in the City. ( _Ah, exclusivity over quality_ , Pahanin had said last year, holding up his glass with a very nearly straight face. _It's like Omar's seen my publishing contract._ )

The lights are low, the frames at the bar are pouring with a generous hand, and laughs break out over the music: people having a good time. Kabr guides Praedyth through the crowd with a hand on his lower back. They stop to chat with Sai and Omar and don't stop to chat with Eriana and Wei Ning, who look a little busy at the moment.

There's a flush in Praedyth's cheeks, but it doesn't spread down to the rest of him like it normally would. The collar and necklace pull at his body heat, leave him prickling all over. Once in a while one of Kabr's beads brushes over bare skin and sends a little shock through him, quick fingers of electricity there and gone again in an instant. There's one bead that keeps almost hitting the bond he'd embroidered in his sleeve, and Praedyth wishes it would already, wishes he could feel however it would interact with the conductive thread.

"Would you like a drink?" Kabr asks, solicitous. He's always thoughtful, but it feels different, with his Light strung around Praedyth's neck. Praedyth shakes his head, feels the slide of the beads against his skin.

"I'm light-headed enough," he confides, and Kabr grins, a sudden flash of his teeth in the dim room. Kabr never reveals as much as Pahanin and Praedyth, but Praedyth knows how to read him. There's excitement hiding in a dimple, a restrained urge to get more hands on Praedyth in the set of his shoulders.

Kabr leans down to murmur in his ear, "I can't wait to go home."

"Me neither." Praedyth leans his weight against Kabr, his back to Kabr's front, and tilts his head up for a quick brush of their lips. 

A few heads in the crowd turn away from them as they break apart. Kabr's hand presses more heavily into his waist.

Pahanin spirals in through the party towards him, a glass of something pink untouched in his hands. "Hey there," he says, breathless, and leans up for each of them to give him a quick kiss too. He's the shortest of the three of them, built for sneaking around.

"Saw a baby Hunter near the windows," he says, settling against a pillar, painted blue and gold in the room's lighting. "See that one? Yeah—with the hair? It's his fourth day on the Tower. Can you imagine starting out life like that?"

"Probably thought he died and went to heaven," Kabr says.

"Want to go make his new life even better?" Praedyth asks. Pahanin shoots him an exasperated look. The henna on his fingers looks black in the low light.

"Not _tonight_ ," he says. But he passes his drink to Kabr and tangles his fingers in the chains tumbling down Praedyth's front, and pulls him down. Their kiss is deeper this time, and Pahanin finishes it by sending a pulse of Light through the necklace. Praedyth melts against Pahanin as he feels it, the strands laying heavier against him, the arc and void beads prickling at him and soothing him in binary sequence.

Pahanin grins at him. He frees himself from the necklace and leans back, snagging his drink (now a little emptier) from Kabr. Before he slides away again, he lays a comforting hand on Praedyth's left bicep. And he lets a burst of Light right into the bond on it.

Praedyth goes dizzy. Pahanin slips back off into the crowd, his cloak swirling around him—long, dark, a sunburst of gold rising from his shoulders.

The rest of the party passes for him in fragments. Wei Ning smirking at him through the crowd as Eriana leads her out. Pahanin's new young Hunter friend, looking right at home in a conversation pit. Kabr leaving him for a few minutes to get them both some water, and Praedyth making his excuses to a warlock in green who wants to quiz him on his, quote, _intriguing_ _chestpiece_.

Other people are wearing gaudier outfits, but he still feels like he's got a spotlight on him. Everyone who knows Praedyth gives him a knowing look as they pass on their way to the dancefloor or the bar.

Kabr returns and hands him a cup. Praedyth is nestled in the corner of a sofa, and Kabr settles down next to him, both of them watching the City lights outside the window. Kabr's presence is an oasis of calm; Praedyth's heart slows. The volume of the party goes up behind them as people catch their breaths and finish their drinks and swing back onto the floor.

He drinks his water. All his nerves sing at the cool damp of the cup, of Kabr's thigh against his, the worn red velvet of the sofa.

A hand appears out of nowhere to rest on the back of his neck—Pahanin, come to perch on the sofa's arm next to him. Pahanin's bright-eyed and sweaty: he always lights up around people.

"Hey," he says. "I'm just about ready to blow this joint, but I could do with one more dance first. You in?"

Of course he's in. Kabr hands him up to Pahanin then gets up himself to find a better vantage point to watch the dance floor.

Pahanin takes Praedyth by the hand, their decorated fingers slipping between each other's. Praedyth always forgets with Kabr around to skew his perspective that he is, technically, tall, but even in his heels Pahanin's shorter than him. 

The song playing now is something classic, pre-Golden Age, with a muffled bass line and a chorus that builds up from the verse like a firework. 

The kind of dancing you do at a party like this isn't like the kind of dancing happening upstairs, even once the Conclave reps leave and Arcite cues up something less respectable on the speaker system. The kind of dancing you do at a party like this to a song like this is all about bodies, all about showing each other what they'd like to get up to _after_ the party. Each other and everyone else there.

Praedyth cedes Pahanin the lead, lets Pahanin move him the way he clearly wants to, a coin flipping across his knuckles. The necklace swings and drags as they move, more and more of it touching Praedyth's bare skin. There's a look in Pahanin's eyes that Praedyth will catalogue later as _marveling_. 

It's not that kind of song, and it's not that kind of party, but as the song wraps up, Pahanin dips Praedyth. Praedyth's got an arm around Pahanin's back, but that's just for balance—all his weight is in Pahanin's hands. Pahanin dips him low till his hair nearly brushes the floor.

Praedyth lets his head tip back, his whole body one taut line, nearly horizontal. The bead right at the centre of the collar, the one that rests at the base of his throat, paints his jaw in purple light.

Pahanin lifts him back up again. His movements don't betray any effort for all that Praedyth has both height and mass on him.

Someone in the crowd whistles. Pahanin and Praedyth trade a look and then a grin as Kabr comes up to them.

"You look good together," he says, voice low. "Pahanin, that baby Hunter of yours seemed to think so too."

"He's not _mine_ ," Pahanin protests. Kabr laughs and puts a hand on each of their backs.

"Find him tomorrow and tell me that again. Let's go home."

—

Pahanin slides ahead of them to unlock the door, the lights coming on inside when he opens it for them.

They all lean on each other to take off their shoes. Pahanin laughs into Praedyth's shoulder when he stumbles getting his off.

Kabr guides them all in their socked feet to Kabr's room. It's set up with all the mirrors in their apartment lined up against the walls reflecting each other. Praedyth can see himself from three—no, four—angles, the way the necklace paints angles across his cheekbones and casts a soft glow into his hair. The way Pahanin and Kabr angle themselves towards him.

Praedyth sits down on the bed. "Oh, wow," he says, weakly.

"Too much?" Pahanin asks, and Kabr swats him in the upper arm. Lightly.

"Don't ask him like that, now of course he's going to say he's fine," Kabr hisses, and Praedyth does have to grin even as his head spins. He's tired from a night out, but he's keyed up—he wants whatever comes next.

Kabr sits down next to him. His weight on the mattress makes Praedyth slide closer to him, their thighs pressing together. Kabr asks, "Were you expecting something else? Do you want to slow down?"

Praedyth shakes his head firmly. He gathers up one of Kabr's hands in his and presses a kiss to his knuckles, right on one of the little floral embellishments Pahanin had painted there. It still smells like like henna and lemon.

"Good surprise, not bad. But I'm starting to think I have to step it up myself—you two keep doing so much for me."

Pahanin sits down on Praedyth's other side. "Are you kidding me?" he asks, and grins wide and crooked. He tugs at one of the necklace's long strands. "This is not altruism, Praedyth."

"Of course not," Kabr puts in. "I've seen your tax forms."

"I give to charity as appropriate and as my accountant recommends," Pahanin says, and then swings himself around and onto Praedyth's lap in one smooth motion. He presses his hands to Praedyth's chest, framing the bead between his collarbones. "But this one? This one's for me, P."

Kabr leans in too, to put a hand on the back of Praedyth's neck, under his hair. His voice is a low, hungry rumble. "I think we're all getting something out of this one."

Praedyth shivers between them. He looks up at the mirrors and sees himself, eyes wide, lips parted, pressed between his teammates. Their hands on him, his hands gripping the covers. Him a jewel in their setting.

He can't help it any more: he presses himself upwards to kiss Pahanin. Pahanin responds eagerly. Kabr pulls the two of them sideways into his lap, making one big unbalanced pile of guardian, and then balances them with hands slipping past Praedyth's waist to hold onto Pahanin. 

Pahanin nudges Praedyth back against Kabr and breaks away, panting. He looks down at them and smiles.

"Trust me," says Pahanin, "this is mostly a present for _us_."

"Unwrap him," Kabr suggests. Praedyth shivers in his grip. 

They unzip him together and Pahanin eases the top of Praedyth's robe down, carefully sliding it out from underneath the necklace. He does it in slow nudges, dragging it out, letting the necklace come into contact with more and more of Praedyth's skin, leaving him trembling, his nerves singing, the necklace's loops cold against his overheated body. It glows brighter, feeding off the electrical impulse and spare Light skittering over him.

Praedyth has to look away from the mirrors. It's too much. He concentrates on Kabr and Pahanin's hands on him, the way they move, the little abstract squid drawn on Kabr's knuckle. The same squid Pahanin always doodles absentmindedly on his notepads when he's supposed to be researching a travel piece.

Kabr holds him down in his lap, running big hands up and down his arms, murmuring into his ears: _come on_ , and _yeah, like that,_ and _so beautiful, sweetheart_. Pahanin slides down to the floor in front of them to undress Praedyth the rest of the way and to make a start on Kabr's outfit.

After he's done, he climbs up on the bed behind them. Pahanin reaches over Kabr's shoulder to lay a hand on Praedyth's and skims it up his neck to his jaw, passing over the collar on the way. It pulses brighter as it feels its creator's presence, becoming more firmly corporeal.

Pahanin tilts Praedyth's head up to face the mirror. "Look at us," he says, and Praedyth's helpless to resist the command. He does.

Kabr and Pahanin make a frame around him. Kabr, tall, solidly layered with fat and muscle, and Pahanin on his knees behind them, the look in his eyes keeping Praedyth in his spot as much as the strength in his lean arms.

"This is right where you're supposed to be," Kabr says, and Pahanin's voice overlaps with his just like their power overlaps on Praedyth's chest. "Right between us," he says.

That goes right to Praedyth's head, just like they knew it would. Kabr holds him down. Pahanin won't let him look away.

And they take him apart together, piece by piece.

Pahanin plays with the collar, sending Light through it, thinning the layers of void around Kabr's arc beads so they fizz bright along Praedyth's nerves. Kabr doesn't use his Light at first, instead just wrapping his broad hand around Praedyth's dick, so flushed with blood the first touch nearly hurts.

Kabr's other hand pulls at his thigh, spreading his legs wider, making a display of Praedyth in the mirror. Pahanin tugs gently at his jaw and Praedyth arches between the two of them, spine bowing. He draws in a deep, shuddering breath and the movement of his ribcage shifts the necklace. It gleams in the low light of the bedroom. Praedyth looks like a, a centerfold between them, an ad in a catalogue for an upscale sex toy store.

He feels like an upscale sex toy, the way Kabr and Pahanin are playing with him. Kabr strokes him slow and Pahanin nips at him, biting the corner of his jaw, tugging on the necklace, pulling against strands so they drag against Praedyth's skin, the beads catching against his collarbones and nipples. 

They keep at that till Praedyth's on edge, tense with stimulation and the desire to come, and then with a wordless signal between them they switch it up so Pahanin's soothing him and Kabr is rippling little waves of arc Light through him, crisp and shocking. Praedyth shivers in their grip.

"Need us to slow down?" Kabr asks, dipping his head to murmur right into Praedyth's ear. It's the sight of him like that in the mirrors that sends Praedyth into another round of shudders, but he shakes his head. 

"You sure? Usually you don't want to come so soon." Pahanin's hand stills on his neck.

"I'm not gonna," Praedyth says, and has to bite his lip at the feel of his throat moving under Pahanin's hand. It's not pressing down, but it is _present_ , only the fine loops of the collar between them. When he can talk again, he says, "How many guns have I made you two and you still don't believe I won't shoot off early?"

Kabr cracks up, laughing quietly with his forehead pressed to Praedyth.

"You're right," Pahanin says, eyes crinkling in a smile. "They always fire exactly when I pull the trigger."

"So _pull_ it," Praedyth returns, and gasps when Pahanin runs a thumb along his bottom lip, tender where he'd bit it.

"Equipment that good, you have to treat right. You can't shoot it and forget about it. You need to care for it." Kabr's spirals lower, quiet so it feels like it's just for him and Pahanin, even though there's nobody else there to keep their conversation from. He hitches Praedyth's leg higher with no sign of effort and his big hand, still on Praedyth's dick, gives it a stroke.

Pahanin comes around to their front, swinging himself around on the pillar of Kabr's upper arm. He runs his hands up under the necklace, palms hot after the cool of the tether cord.

"There's maintenance. Detailing," Pahanin says, and tugs at the necklace. It grows under his hands, spawning more loops and filigree, extending down Praedyth's biceps to wrap around them, dripping beads like seed pearls. " _Ornaments_."

Kabr shifts them all back on the bed and tilts Praedyth's head to kiss him. Over his shoulder, Praedyth can see into another mirror, propped up against the dresser. It's mostly Kabr who's visible in it, the curve of his spine and the lines of his forearms as he looms over Praedyth.

Praedyth deepens the kiss, till Kabr nudges at his cheekbone with one gentle finger and pulls away. Still with that finger, he guides Praedyth's eyes back to the main mirror to see the three of them. Kabr holding Praedyth, and Pahanin next to them, dark eyes bright with mischief.

"Hey," Pahanin says, over Praedyth's head to Kabr. "Mind if I tap in?"

Kabr grins. "Be my guest," he says, and takes his hand off Praedyth's dick, with one last stroke goodbye. A whine drags itself out of Praedyth's throat.

Pahanin sprawls down on the bed in front of them, and Kabr lifts Praedyth higher up, so he's less in Kabr's lap than he is supported by his arms. When Praedyth looks into the mirror, he sees why—Kabr's set them up as pretty as a picture, all three of them on display as Pahanin draws Praedyth's cock into his mouth.

Pahanin knows exactly what he likes, and he uses it to bring Praedyth to the edge and to keep him there, balanced on a knife's edge of sensation. Kabr flicks at the necklace, charge crawling up its fine cords, blue joining purple, wrapping gentle and uncompromising around his neck.

"Praedyth," Kabr says softly, and Praedyth drags his eyes away from the mirror to him. He shifts one hand away from Praedyth's thighs to lay it against Praedyth's hair, cradling his hair. "Will you do something for us?"

Praedyth nods, his hands tight on the bedsheets, trembling in Kabr's solid grip. _Anything_. He'd do anything for them. They know that.

Kabr sends a wave of arc Light through him, crown to cock, and Pahanin shudders as it reaches him and responds with a deep violet pulse of void heading up the other way.

Kabr's voice is low, a gift just for Praedyth. He says,

"Come for us."

And Praedyth does.

He stiffens in their arms, toes curling, feels Pahanin swallow around him. His vision swims. He breathes in huge heaving gasps and Kabr and Pahanin soothe him through the buzzy aftershocks, skin oversensitive and tingling.

When his vision clears again Pahanin is sitting on his haunches in front of him, looking smug as anything.

Kabr shifts Praedyth a little to one side and Pahanin swarms up to them. He puts one hand on Kabr's thigh and one on Praedyth's.

"Hi," he says, breathless. "Mind being the jam in our sandwich a little longer?"

Praedyth grins back down at him, loopy, heart impossibly full. "Do I ever?"

Pahanin leans up and gives him a kiss, fast and sloppy, then does the same to Kabr. The two of them deepen their kiss, Praedyth pressed between them. It's the perfect vantage point to see—and feel—everything they do, as they shuffle their pants off and Kabr grasps both of their dicks in one hand. Pahanin thumps his forehead against Kabr's sternum and Praedyth reaches for him, dragging his nails through the prickly hair at the nape of his neck just the way he likes. 

One of Pahanin's hands joins Kabr's on their cocks. The other draws Praedyth in. They kiss as Pahanin and Kabr keep frotting against one another, then Kabr joins them, biting gently at Pahanin's ear, his jaw, the join of his neck and shoulder. 

Praedyth breaks off and lets Kabr tag into the kiss. Pressed between his partners, he's dizzy, elated, exhausted. He couldn't go again if he wanted to, but being right here between them, feeling every twitch they make and every spark of their Light as it passes through him on its way between them.

He feels it when Kabr and Pahanin get close, the tension in all their muscles, their laboured breath. Pahanin scrabbles for Praedyth, tangling a hand in the necklace and pulling him in even closer. The void beads dissolve into sparks, dancing over all three of them, and when Pahanin and Kabr hit their climax, their come shoots out onto him, its lines mingling with the necklace's purple loops.

When Pahanin looks up, Kabr is looking straight into the mirror, staring at the tangle of their bodies on his bed and looking poleaxed, exactly like a sunbreaker's snuck up behind him and slammed him across the back of a skull with one of the _big_ hammers.

Pahain looks up, grins tiredly at Praedyth, and gives Kabr a kiss, soft and slow. Ribs still heaving, he gentles his grip on Praedyth's necklace, and it starts to slip away into nothing from the bottom up, the Light of its making no longer tied down to a shape. The arc beads on it flicker into Kabr's hand and, with an exaggerated grimace of disappointment, he uses its static-electricity charge to flick as much of the mingled sweat and come off all the three of them as he can.

It's a trick Praedyth is always grateful for, meaning nobody has to get up to find a cloth, but he's hit the point of enough stimulation tonight that it just tickles. He feels too big for his skin right now, shifting between them.

The last of the collar slips away from his neck, leaving the room dark. Kabr falls back against the bed, pulling Praedyth with him. Once they're lying down, Pahanin drapes himself over them both, their chests all heaving and their muscles trembling. It's good, the weight on him, calming him down, and slowly he comes back to himself. To Kabr idly petting at his hair, to Pahanin reaching around him to lay a hand on Kabr's arm.

Praedyth lifts one hand and calls a little flicker of Light to him, a cupped handful of the sun's power, diffuse and soft. He lets it trickle through his fingers down his arm and then lets it spread to cover the bed, looking like mist backlit by the first light of dawn. 

It's just a little, not enough to take away the sweet ache in his muscles. Just enough to soothe them all, to keep them warm even without the blankets they kicked away from the surface of the bed.

Pahanin's legs tangle with his, and Kabr takes Praedyth's hand in his. Praedyth's hand is still faintly glowing from handling the Light, and Kabr makes a small sound of pleasure at its warmth. The henna, dark on their fingers, makes a spark kindle in Praedyth's heart.

Kabr kisses their joined hands. Pahanin, half-asleep already, reaches to lay his own hand over them, and their tangle of hands sinks down to rest on Praedyth's chest, heavy in a way the necklace and collar hadn't been.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Kabr says.

"Happy Crimson Days," Pahanin adds, facedown and muffled.

"Happy Crimson Days," Praedyth echoes. He squeezes their hands in his and lets another trickle of Light out. Its solar frequencies hum with warmth, with love, with everything he needs to make sure Pahanin and Kabr know.

His eyes want to slide shut, sending him off into sleep, but Praedyth keeps them open. He wants to keep looking at his partners, absorbing everything about the way they're tangled up in each other.

They all glow in the light of his power, faint silhouettes in the mirrors ringing them. Praedyth memorizes the shapes they make, the curve of Kabr's ribcage, the shadowed jumble of their hands. Kabr sets his other hand on the nape of Praedyth's neck, sighing a little in his sleep, reaching for him.

Praedyth closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [_A little less conversation and a little more "touch my body" / 'Cause I'm so into you_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ekZEVeXwek)   
> 


End file.
